Well, I've made it through two weeks of classes. I'm only taking the one German class and teaching the two Swedish classes, but it's been more than a full-time job. I'm assuming things will calm down as I get more settled (and my students get settled.) German is going quite a bit slower than I had hoped; a little too much repetition and not enough new stuff. The class is huge so I'm attributing the snail-like pace to that. Despite being so busy with school, I did manage to take en evening trip to this wonderful place:
Bad Waltersdorf
It's a thermal spa about 45 minutes outside of Graz, built on thermal springs with multiple indoor and outdoor pools and an indoor "Sauna Village, " complete with Sauna Bar. For 13 euros, I got to spend five hours in the future.
Everyone wandered around completely silent in towels, some sipping drinks, others reading or simply staring off into space. Each sauna had a different theme, my favorite was the Roman Catholic church theme complete with arches, fountains, twinkling stars on the ceiling, and some sort of herb-infused fog. I also enjoyed the underwater stationary bicycles and the outdoor water massage arranged in ~10 stations. At each station, a different body part gets massaged; after a couple of minutes at one station, a bell rings and you move to the next station. First, the foot; then the ankle, then the calf and so on until you end up with a very powerful thermal back massage. I felt amazing afterward.
Other news: Tara is on her way to visit at this very moment! She caught a train in Prague and should arrive in Graz by mid-afternoon. Since I don't really know many people yet, I haven't been able to figure out where bands play apart from the big venues. Luckily, there is a 2-day music festival in Graz this weekend (Styrian Stylez) so Tara and I are going to harass people until they tell us where the Graz Turf Club is.
Finally, if anyone wants to send me good salsa, I will love you forever. I did a little salsa taste-test last weekend where I bought three salsas in order to try and find an edible one. Here are my findings:
Salsa One -- I think this was actually a meat rub that you use before grilling. It was very sweet and sort of BBQ-ish. Knowing German would certainly help my hunt for the edible salsa.
Salsa Two -- More like Salsa Jelly. Consistency of jelly but with the flavor of taco sauce but chunky like salsa. Disgusting.
Salsa Three -- Kinda ok! A lot like Pace. Unfortunately, the only have Mild.
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